Giants' Hakeem Nicks to run routes today for first time since breaking his foot

Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerGiants wide receiver Hakeem Nicks, who has been standing around and watching practice for all of training camp so far, will run routes on the side today for the first time since breaking his foot in the spring.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Hakeem Nicks still has a ways to go before returning to practice and games. In the meantime, catching passes from members of the training staff will have to suffice.

It won't be a whole lot of action, but it'll be better than the standing around and watching he's done since arriving here at camp.

"Yeah, definitely. I’m exciting about running some routes today and getting to see where I’m at," Nicks said. "It’s going to be exciting for me just to see where I’m at."

Nicks said he'd been running mostly straight ahead before Monday's circle runs. Today will mark the most cutting he's done in his rehab.

Nicks is waiting to see how his foot responds before declaring the next step. Asked if there's a chance he'll leave Albany having not practiced, he replied, "We’ll see. If they choose to let me go out there and do some things next week as far as running routes on air with the quarterbacks and we’ll see how that goes. Right now, we’re just going to see how today goes and take it from there."

Of course, the most important question has been, and continues to be, whether he'll be ready for Sept. 5 against the Cowboys.

LB Michael Boley said his current hamstring injury isn't nearly as bad as the one he suffered last year. Then again, seeing as how he missed two weeks of the regular season in 2011 and is already back after sitting out only a week of training camp, I suppose that's been made clear by now.

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DT Dwayne Hendricks said he's expecting to practice today after hurting his knee on Monday. Tom Coughlin had thought Hendricks was going to be out a few days, so we'll see if that's the case.

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CB Terrell Thomas was on his way back to camp today. He might meet with reporters after practice. Stay tuned.